UNDER THE MICROSCOPE:To get students into the scientific disciplines needed for a knowledged-based economy, we had better pay them
FUTURE ECONOMIC prospects for Ireland depend on building a knowledge-based economy, of which information and communications technologies (ICT) are a vital component. High-level skills are required to service the ICT sector, mainly honours-degree graduates in computer science and electronic engineering. At the moment, insufficient numbers of our brightest students are entering this field. The situation is described in detail in the report Future Requirements for High-Level ICT Skills in the ICT Sector, just published by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs ( www.forfas.ie/publications/show/pub298.html).
The ICT sector now produces one third of Ireland's total exports, with annual sales of €50 billion, and employs 70,000 skilled people. Many top international ICT companies are located here. There was a global downturn in ICT in 2001 which scared many of our brightest students away from taking up computing and electronics at third level. The Irish ICT industry has largely recovered from this downturn, but the level of skills now required of ICT graduates is greater than before because our ICT sector is repositioning itself away from straightforward manufacturing and towards innovation and design.
A falling intake of students into ICT areas since 2001 now seems to have bottomed out. The CAO points requirements for entry into these courses also fell dramatically and there is now a serious shortfall between availability of top-class ICT graduates and the current and projected employment needs of the industry. Good-quality degrees in ICT areas are intellectually demanding, calling for our brightest students equipped with good mathematical talent. How are we to attract such students into ICT in sufficient numbers?
The reason why student interest in ICT careers is lacklustre is straightforward. Neither the students nor their parents perceive that the careers available in ICT are sufficiently well-paid, plentiful, prestigious or secure enough to be highly attractive. Intake into ICT will not improve substantially until this perception is reversed.
The first recommendation made by the Expert Group in its recent report is that a major initiative should be launched to communicate the rewarding and interesting career opportunities that exist in computing, software and electronic engineering. This is fine, but the approach must be hard-hitting and must clearly demonstrate that careers in ICT are synonymous with high salaries, secure employment and prestigious careers. Why has the ICT sector been so lethargic to date in promoting this message?
Of course, there is a small difficulty in promoting careers in ICT from the point of view of salary and security. The ICT industry is directly coupled to market forces. Market downturns have immediate consequences for security and salaries. This appears unattractive to many young people compared with professional careers in other areas that are much more insulated from market fluctuations, such as medicine and various careers in the State, semi-State and public service areas.
Things need to be balanced out here. Everything depends on the primary wealth creation of industries such as ICT, but careers in ICT inevitably carry an inherent risk. Compensating rewards for working in those areas should be enhanced and made much more visible. And the "featherbedded" aspects of other areas should be reduced by building in accountability and performance criteria.
The Expert Group makes 15 recommendations, including enhancing the mathematical skills of teachers, awarding bonus points for Leaving Cert honours maths, awarding bursaries of up to €4,000 per annum to students who achieve at least 500 CAO points and who enrol on an ICT degree, encouraging high-quality ICT overseas students to study and work in Ireland, boosting postgraduate training, and recruiting high-skilled foreign ICT graduates.
The Government has a target of doubling the number of PhD graduates by 2012. The idea is to provide a pool of the most highly qualified graduates ready for employment in ICT, and in science and technology generally, that will attract foreign companies to locate here. The push to graduate more PhDs is already in place, but I am somewhat alarmed to see that 47 per cent of students currently enrolled on PhD programmes are non-nationals. This would be fine if these non-nationals were prepared to settle and work in Ireland after graduation, but surely they are much more likely to leave. There is a risk that we largely end up subsidising the training requirements of other countries.
We have no problem attracting students into medicine, law, accountancy and business studies, and we all know why. We must attract students into science and technology using equivalent worldly attractions. James Watson (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) gave a lecture at TCD last year. Afterwards he was asked to recommend how to attract more students into science. His answer was: "Double scientists' salaries."
• William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry, and public awareness of science officer, at UCC understandingscience.ucc.ie